Hypnotist and magician Tony Le Mesmer from “Knowing Me Knowing You”. With Steve Coogan and a lady in a cage. I based the character on Derren Brown even though I hadn’t even heard of Derren Brown at this point. That’s how good an actor I am.

Actually I think he was a mix of David Copperfield, this mockney stage hypnotist I once saw in Oxford and David Blaine. Or was David Blaine not quite around then either? I can’t remember, the mind plays tricks. Which is how these guys make a living I guess…

The first part of “The Pool” – and the rest of the Day Today episode as youtube didn’t let me cut and paste properly (Buy the DVDs though, kids. Then I get 23p or something). This isn’t the bit with Steve Coogan’s pool supervisor. I’ll post that elsewhere… (Buy the DVD)

There is much to be said for spending night after night in a cramped synagogue storage cupboard. For a start, it puts you in touch with our ancestors living in the wilderness of Sinai. Like them, I’m bloody uncomfortable. And the dreams aren’t much fun either. The other night I dreamt I was being force-fed 12 dozen long-haired poodles only to wake up and find that a box had fallen open on one of the shelves above me and dumped a whole load of taleysim onto my face. That was two days ago and I’m still picking fringes out from between my teeth.

But the simplicity of life in a store cupboard can lift us up. (more…)

What’s weird about seeing The Day Today again is that we’re probably now the age of some of the characters we played. Steve Coogan’s now the age we saw Partridge as being. I think I’ve still got a couple more years to catch up with Brant, though well done make-up artist Lisa Cavalli-Green for predicting the in-vogue Alistair Darling’s eyebrows…

Rebecca Front’s Barbara Wintergreen reports on Patrick Marber’s Chapman Baxter and his execution at the hands of his last victim (me), reanimated by Steve Coogan’s Travis Davely (how we giggled at the silliness of that name which was DJ “the Hairy Cornflake” Dave Lee Travis’ name the other way round).